Imagine that you are a very small chicken. You just hatched. You just opened your eyes for the first time. All ducks are yellow. And you too... But you are much more beautiful than the rest. You are special.
In 2021, while the pandemic had not yet loosened its grip on us, an article appeared in The New York Times. It spoke of a condition that many people had recently begun to experience. This widespread state, called languishing, was described as something that was neither quite burnout nor quite depression, but rather a vague sense of feeling joyless and purposeless.
If we had a "word-o-meter" to measure which phrases people used most often in December, there’s no doubt that words like "from now on," "starting today," and "from this point forward" would rank at the top. There is certainly something invigorating and energizing about the strong connection between entering a new year and making resolutions. As a psychotherapist, I can confidently say that people are far more likely to seek therapy not during the summer, but rather in the [...]
It is known that around one and a half years after our birth, as our language skills develop, we begin to understand opposing concepts. However, even before words become tools for us, we start to learn this at a sensory level — encountering the first contradiction in life through the presence versus absence of our caregiver’s nurturing behaviors. When we interact with a small baby, we instinctively cover our face with our hands and "disappear" momentarily to create that joyful reaction, even though [...]